


What's It Gonna Be?

by the_genderman



Series: Semi-Canon Freebird-Verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Do they make up or break up?, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Sam is getting a little fed up with Steve, Sam is not his therapist, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve needs therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 17:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11235651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_genderman/pseuds/the_genderman
Summary: A "Choose Your Own Adventure" style ficlet, originally posted on Tumblr, March 2017. The split-off between my two main ships (when considered in the in-canon universe). Some minor word changes.





	1. Chapter 1

“Why are we in New Jersey?” Steve asked again, trying and failing to properly re-fold the AAA road map without getting in Sam’s way.

“Because this is the first sighting that’s come up on the radar in over a week now,” Sam repeated.

“Bucky would never be caught dead in Jersey,” Steve insisted.

“You don’t know how much of him is left in there. Does _he_ know he’d never be caught dead in Jersey?”

“He’s in there. I know he is. He recognized me. He pulled me out of the river.” Steve slouched down in his seat, giving up and folding the map in ways it was never meant to be folded.

“I’m not saying there’s nothing left of him in there, I’m just saying we don’t know _how much_ is left. I read the files too, you know.”

Steve pursed his lips and turned his head to stare out the window.

“Alright, fine. We’ll talk about it tonight,” Sam said and turned his full attention back to the road.

\-------------

Steve sat at the motel desk hunched over a stack of file folders, his dinner practically untouched next to him. Sam was getting a little tired of having to remind him to eat. He walked over and gently nudged the burger closer to Steve, who looked at it like he’d forgotten that it existed, and quickly finished it. He went immediately back to the folder he was reading from.

“Steve…” Sam said, still standing next to him, warning tones entering his voice.

Steve kept reading.

“Steve.”

No response.

“ _Steve_.”

Still nothing.

Sam sighed and flipped the folder closed, leaning down into Steve’s face.

“I was reading that,” Steve complained.

“I know you were. You read that thing every night. Take a break,” Sam said, holding his hand firmly on top of the stack of folders

“I can’t take a break, not until we’ve found him.” Steve tried to wiggle the folder away from Sam, who just pressed harder. Steve knew he could lift Sam’s hand off if he really wanted to, but that would be a breach of trust.

“We’re never gonna find him if you worry yourself to death first. C’mon Steve, please. Take a break. Let’s talk. It’s been almost a month since the helicarriers went down, with you on one of them; we haven’t forgotten that, and we haven’t talked about _you_ even _once_ since then,” Sam said, placing his other hand on Steve’s shoulder. He could feel the tension in Steve’s muscles.

“Is this you speaking as a therapist or as a friend?”

“Seeing as I’m your boyfriend, and _not_ your therapist, this is me speaking as a friend. And are you finally admitting that you need a therapist?”

“No. I just thought, since…”

“…Since I did meetings down at the VA, I might be doing it to you, too, yeah, I know. You do realize people can be concerned about you as a friend and not just in a professional capacity, right?” Sam asked.

“And I don’t need a therapist.”

“And that’s not answering my question.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Riiiight. Because running yourself into the ground is ‘fine.’ Because forgetting to eat until your stomach starts hurting is ‘fine.’ Because refusing to sleep in the same bed as me because you’ve been having nightmares is ‘fine.’ Steve, please. I can put up with a lot, but you are really pushing it,” Sam said, taking his hand off of the stack of files, letting his other hand slip slowly off of Steve’s shoulder, and sitting heavily down on the closer of the two beds.

“Sam, you _know_ why we have to get a room with two beds.”

“Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean we have to use both of them. Just move the pillows, mess the blankets around, you can make it look like someone slept there, no problem.”

“But the nightmares; what if I hit you while I’m asleep?”

“Then I’ll get out of the way and wake you up before you can do it again. I know you’d never do it on purpose. And just because I’m not a super-soldier doesn’t mean I’m fragile. Don’t try to treat me like I’m made out of glass, ok?”

Steve stood up from the desk and began to pace the narrow aisle that ran from the room door to the bathroom. Sam watched in silence for a few minutes.

“Steve, please. Stop pacing and come sit with me,” Sam asked softly.

Steve stopped pacing, but he didn’t immediately move from his spot.

Sam looked pointedly at Steve and patted the bed next to him.

Steve stared back for a moment, then kicked his shoes off and climbed up next to Sam. He folded his hands in his lap and lay his head on Sam’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said quietly. “I guess I have been kind of on edge since finding out that Bucky was still alive. It’s been a lot to process.”

“Especially since you’re trying to do it all alone.”

“I’m not alone, Sam. You’re with me.”

“Physically? Yes. But sometimes it feels like you’re disappearing into yourself and I can’t reach you,” Sam said, pointedly putting his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “Let me back in, Steve. Please.”

“I guess I’m just not good at the whole ‘friends’ thing,” Steve said.

“I’m calling bullshit on that,” Sam replied. “You’ve got friends. You’ve got me, you’ve got Natasha, you’ve got the other Avengers, you have to have had other friends at S.H.I.E.L.D. Back before you got frozen, you had Bucky, you had Peggy, you had the Howling Commandos. You have had and still have friends.”

“Ok, fine. Correction: I’m not good at _making_ friends,” Steve explained. “You’re probably the first friend I can remember making actually on my own, not having had them make the first move or being introduced by someone else. And a lot of those people you mentioned? They were friends through work. I was the Howlies’ commanding officer. I was supposed to keep it professional with them. Maybe sometimes I’d be able to let the mask slip and actually be myself around them, but I wasn’t _supposed_ to.

“I’m also _supposedly_ the leader of the Avengers when we’re together, so, again, I’ve got to keep myself professional and detached. And besides, have you met the Avengers? We work well enough together when we’re saving the world, but we’re not exactly meeting up every week for beers. Natasha doesn’t really let herself get close to anyone, as far as I can tell. Tony I can handle in small doses, but I’d probably have tried to strangle him already if he was in your place helping me look for Bucky. Thor is a prince with princely duties off on another planet (that still feels so weird to say), Bruce lives in the Tower but he’s practically a hermit when he’s not directly on Avengers duty, and I have no idea where Clint goes when he’s not working with us.

“I’m still surprised, even now, that Peggy and I became friends, given how badly I flubbed our first meeting. And Bucky and I became friends when he flung himself into a fight I was in the middle of. We didn’t hit it off immediately, I was upset and felt like he didn’t think I could handle myself, y’know, like everyone else. He said he was just trying to even things out a bit, said three-against-two was better odds than me trying to do it on my own.

“And as a kid? I didn’t really have friends other than Bucky. I was always sick, so I didn’t get to go out and run around and play with the other neighborhood kids very much, and when I did, who wanted the skinny kid with the constant wheeze on their team? At school, I guess I _kinda_ had friends, but they didn’t come over and visit me, and I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn’t their first choice to come over and visit them.

“Bucky was the only real friend I had from age eight until I was 24 and I met Peggy and then the Howlies. He was always there for me, and I wasn’t there for him. I let him down. Everything HYDRA did to him? That only happened because I didn’t do enough. I didn’t look for him then. I _have_ to look for him now. I can’t lose him again.”

There was a growing damp spot on Sam’s shoulder. He didn’t think Steve would appreciate, right at this moment, having it pointed out to him that Sam had noticed that he was crying.

“So, by saving him, you’re saving yourself, or something?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think you want to hear this, I know I don’t, but I have to ask,” Sam said. “Were you in love with him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For "Yes," proceed to Chapter 2.  
> For "No," Proceed to Chapter 3.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "breakup" ending.

Steve lowered his head, unable to meet Sam’s eyes. 

“Steve. Please. At least respect me enough to give me an answer,” Sam was saying.

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Steve finally answered. “I love you, I really do. You don’t deserve this.”

Sam sighed hard. “That’s a very ambiguous non-answer. I’m changing the question: Are you _still_ in love with him?”

“Yes, I was in love with Bucky,” Steve said, admitting it out loud for the first time, seventy-nine years later. “And yes, I guess I am still in love with him.”

Steve glanced up. Sam’s face had closed off a little.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again.

“Why didn’t you say something before this? Why did I have to be the one to bring it up?”

Steve sat back up, rubbing his hands over his face, wiping his eyes. Sam’s arm had slipped off his shoulder.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Steve said, barely louder than a whisper. “I thought, maybe, if I waited, I’d be able to figure something out. Or maybe we’d find him, and he wouldn’t feel the same (I never told him, never asked him), and he could tell me that, so I could start to get over him. I didn’t have enough time with Peggy to deal with it back then. I thought I was hiding it well enough. Peggy never noticed.”

“Never noticed or never said anything?” Sam said, voice thawing a little. Steve was clearly in distress and he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for pressing the point. Not _too_ guilty, though. _He_ wasn’t the one hiding a (very long-lived) secret crush on his not-actually-dead best friend from his current boyfriend.

Steve just blinked and looked away, eyes moistening again.

After a few moments, he spoke again. “See? This is what I meant when I said I’m not good at the ‘friends’ thing. I can’t make friends, I can’t keep friends. My best friend from back then is a brainwashed assassin who desperately needs help, and my best friend from now just learned that I’m still in love with said brainwashed assassin. If that’s not fucking things up, then I don’t know what is.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?” Steve sniffed.

“Promise me, when we get back to New York, you’re gonna start seeing a therapist.”

“I just ruined a promising relationship and the only thing you’re telling me is go see a therapist?”

“Not the only thing. It’s just the most important thing right now. This isn’t healthy, Steve,” Sam said, reaching out for Steve’s hand again. “You _have_ friends. We _don’t_ hate you. And if no one is getting close to you, it’s probably because you’re pushing us away. If you keep telling people you’re fine and always hiding what you really feel, maybe eventually they start to believe you. And then they think maybe you’re just a very private individual who needs his alone-time away from the lights and noise of the 21st century.”

“So, you’re not breaking up with me?” Steve asked hopefully.

“Steve, don’t be dense. You just told me that you’re still in love with Bucky. Of course we’re breaking up. I’m not gonna sit here and wait for you to get your life together. We can’t be together if you’re still hung up on your ex (he still counts as an ex even if you two never actually dated), that’s not fair on me. What I’m _not_ doing is leaving you entirely. We can stay friends. You’re a good man, Steve. You just need to get your head screwed on right.”

Steve pulled Sam into a bearhug. “I don’t deserve you, Sam.”

“Well, I’m not gonna argue that, but you’re stuck with me nonetheless. And you are _going_ to see a therapist.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "make up" chapter.

Steve lifted his head off Sam’s shoulder and looked at him quizzically.

“Wait,” Steve said. “Wait a minute. You thought that Bucky and I… that we… what?”

“I don’t know what you did or did not do, but the way you talk about him, it sure sounds like you were head over heels for him back in the day. Were you?” Sam asked.

“No? We were just friends. He was pretty much my only real friend for sixteen years, we were close.”

“So that ‘Even when I had nothing I had Bucky’ wasn’t actually a confession of undying love?” It was Sam’s turn to look quizzical.

“Not romantic love. We weren’t romantically involved, I didn’t want to be. And even if I had thought about it, he was my best friend and I wouldn’t have done anything to put that at risk. And besides, given the number of girls he’d bring home, I doubt he was interested in me like that, either,” Steve explained.

“Oh.” A moment of clarity.

“Sam, is that what’s been bothering you?”

“Part of it,” Sam admitted. “Part of it’s what I already told you about you trying to do this all alone, but yeah. Part of it was I was afraid I was gonna lose you to him. It felt like I was slowly losing you to a zombie, a ghost from your past and I’d never be able to compete with the memory of him. I resented that. And because you went at it with an intensity I hadn’t seen outside of, well, us, you can see why I felt that way, right?”

“I’m sorry I made you feel like that, Sam. I didn’t realize I was doing that to you,” Steve apologized, shifting his seat on the bed to where he was sitting directly in front of Sam. He took Sam’s hands in his own. “You deserve an explanation. It’s not an excuse, I know now I should have done better. It’s just, I know what it’s like to be alone. Even when I’d be surrounded by people, I could still feel deeply lonely; part of the whole ‘not good at friends’ thing I talked about. And the Winter Soldier program? Bucky was alone after they took him. They took him out of his head, or buried him so deep inside himself that he couldn’t find the surface, or whatever they did, but he’s been alone for almost seventy years. And he’s still alone out there now. I want to find him and bring him back.”

“Ok, I can see that. But if you’re not exactly good at making friends, how did you plan on reintroducing Bucky to the world and making sure he wouldn’t be alone anymore?” Sam asked.

“Well, Bucky was always more social than me and made friends pretty easily, so as long as I got him around people he got along with, I was hoping he would be able to remember enough to fall back into that. I would try to convince him to come in, come to the Avengers Tower, and meet the people there. He and Howard got on like a house on fire back in the day, what with Howard’s various inventions and experiments. Bucky always was a bit of a nerd, in today’s language, so I was hoping maybe he and Tony could bond over that kind of stuff.”

“So this is where you’ve been going when you disappear into your head?”

“Part of it,” Steve said, mirroring Sam’s admission. “Part of it was probably also feeling guilty for letting this happen to him in the first place.”

“Again, Steve, you didn’t ‘let’ any of that happen to him, you couldn’t have known he had survived the fall. Please don’t go down this particular trail again. And when we get back to New York, you’re gonna agree to see a therapist, right?”

“Do I really have to?”

“Yes, you do. If you’re gonna bring back a brainwashed assassin to the Tower and try to introduce him to your friends (because we are your friends, Steve, do not forget, _you have friends_ ), you shouldn’t both need therapy at the same time. At least _one_ of you should be reasonably stable,” Sam explained.

“You’ve got a point,” Steve admitted. “What would I do without you?”

“Of course I do. And you don’t want to think about what things would be like without me, for more reasons than just our little HYDRA take-down,” Sam said with a little laugh. “You’d be dead, _and_ sad and lonely.”

“Oh, not just dead, but dead _and_ sad and lonely, huh? Is that what ‘a fate worse than death’ is? To be dead _and_ sad?” Steve chuckled.

“Yep,” Sam laughed again. “You’d come back as a sad ghost haunting Pierce’s house and he’d come after you with a rolled up newspaper or something and you’d slink away and be all sad and dead and moping in the corner.”

This got a proper laugh from Steve.

“Now come on. I know it’s not that late, but we’ve got an early morning tomorrow looking for your brainwashed friend,” Sam said. “Come to bed, Steve; I’m not letting you sleep alone tonight, understand?”

Steve just smiled and nodded.


End file.
